Are the bees going into the super and seem to be working in it? Do you still have a honey flow going on? We harvested 2 weeks ago. 4 of my supers were incompletely filled out and I replaced them on the hives in an attempt to get them to fill them out for a later harvest in August.
I don't move my hives, so I would not put a new super on at this time of year, at my latitude of 31N. So my hope is that they would continue to fill out the supers already started.

Yes, very normal behavior.
I think you'll find there is a "season" for the drawing out of comb and we're past that point in the beeyear. For the first year of keeping bees, it sounds like your hive has done quite well having drawn out basically two deep brood chambers of comb. After the Spring passes, the bees are much less inclined to pull wax. Some might say you can encourage them by feeding sugar syrup but I've found the bees have their own schedule and feeding syrup late in the beeyear may only encourage them to swarm (as opposed to drawing out more wax). In order to insure their coming winter survival and to have a strong, healthy hive next Spring, I'd recommend you prepare yourself mentally to not take any "surplus" honey this year (the bees will need it).
Here's exactly what I'd do at this point: I would reverse the two brood chambers (switch top for bottom). I would remove the queen excluder from the hive completely.
Removal of the excluder will help the bees to draw out the wax in the honey super. By reversing the brood chambers, they are much more likely to store only honey in the super at the top once the comb is drawn, which is what you want to encourage (for them to have ample Winter food stores for your area).
Further, it sounds as if you've done a very good job with your bees thus far.

Yep. I agree with TXBEEGUY.

Hi,

I too am in my first year of beekeeping so would appreciate some advice please from the masters :-)

I have a similar situation as RUDE_RUDY - except that I only have 1 brood box currently - which is currently full to bursting..

As it is now quite late in the season - should I now;

Add a brand new shallow super with queen excluder for them to draw / to give them extra space to work?

Add a new deep brood box?

..or should I use a shallow super without a queen excluder for the girls to use as a brood box..?

Also a general question if you use a super, and it is not completely drawn or full of honey, should / can you leave it in place over the winter for them to feed from or should you remove it and store the frames?

This is probably a really dumb question - but if you use a super without a queen excluder, and they then use it for brood, can you / should you subsequently use the frames they have used for brood in next seasons honey super?

thanks!

orac, Where do you live? Some people run a deep and medium for overwintering. Many beekeepers here in NW Massachusetts run 2 deeps. You really need to get something else on top of the one deep. Don't use a queen excluder, because the queen needs more room to lay. If you only have one deep that is bursting, I'd check for signs of swarming . The easiest way if you have a helper is pop the deep loose from your varroa screen or bottom board, tilt the brood box up at an angle and look underneath for signs of queen cups or cells hanging down from the frames. A really crowded hive will swarm even in it's first year. If you know another local beekeeper, ask them what they run for overwintering. If I had a partially full super and one brood box I'd leave it on. At least in these parts there is still a month or more that the bees will be bringing in nectar. As far as using brood frames for next season's honey, it depends. If you use any kind of treatment on your hive in the fall, I wouldn't use the frames for honey. When I've used a medium on top of a deep for brood, I marked all of the medium frames in red so I would know not to use them in the future for honey. If you put a honey super on and the queen uses it for brood early on, you can later make sure the queen has moved back down and put an excluder on. The brood will hatch out and the bees will fill the super with honey which you can then extract. The rule is NEVER treat a hive with honey supers on and ALWAYS follow exact directions when using any kind of chemical or medication. If you haven't joined a local bee club, you should look for one. You can get all kinds of hands on help by befriending other beekeepers. Also read some good basic books such as Richard Bonney's "Beekeeping-A Practical Guide" and "Hive Management" It's always tough to go it alone, because the bees don't always do things by the book. It will take time to learn the ropes and every time you crack open a hive there's something new to learn.

Hi,

Thanks for the advice..

Im in the UK.

As suggested I added a brand new, 10 frame medium onto my WBC without queen excluder at the weekend and they already seem pleased with the extra space :-)

I checked for queen cups - none found - so thats a relief.

I havent yet used any treatment, but thanks for the warning never to treat a hive with honey supers on.